


Dumpster Dive Angel

by arithmeticulous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol, Angels, Biblical References, Drug Use, Fallen Angels, Gen, Other, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4388870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arithmeticulous/pseuds/arithmeticulous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mika Dallas, a community-college drop out and recreational drug user, was completely okay with being a nothing-special kind of man. He didn't much care for big dreams or fantasies or ideas about changing the world... Until fantasy found him in his apartment's dumpster.<br/>(Not really sure where I'm going with this. Stay tuned.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Genesis

_I never wanted this_ , I told myself as I poured my fourth cup of coffee, desperately trying to sober up. _Why do I have to be such a nice person?_ Self-deprecation was practically my middle name at this point. If I could walk in a straight line, I would pace. Since I couldn’t, I took my novelty gun-handle mug and stumbled back to the couch to continue watching infomercials on TV. I didn’t have enough for cable, so this was really all my free apartment antenna could pick up at this time.

The program about the automatic clothes-folder ended to be replaced with an over-excited man trying to sell compact blenders. It was six in the morning. Four hours since I’d come home with her. I had been so drunk, I wasn’t sure I took her home or if it was the other way around. I remembered stumbling out of the bar sometime after midnight, probably closer to 1 AM. I could still taste this one girl’s vanilla chapstick on my lips, barely noticeable over the taste of whisky. She’d just wanted to flirt, so we parted ways and I decided to cut my losses and head for home.

The city of Richmond, CA was quiet around this time on a weekday night. So, when I heard a groan pierce the silence as I passed the alley beside my apartment building, it sent a shiver up my spine. I looked down the darkened passage between buildings, straining my ears over the sound of my racing heartbeat. The noise had scared the crap out of me, and I wasn’t sure whether to investigate or run. When I heard the groan again, it was accompanied by a thump from the inside of a dumpster. I’d heard about people dumping babies in dumpsters, but this sounded like an adult… Maybe a woman? When I didn’t hear anything for a long time, I finally started to walk closer. It was like watching myself in a horror movie. _Here I go,_ I thought as I started to open the lid, _First one to die before the protagonist comes on screen._

Now, usually, the insides of dumpsters are pretty dark and mucky. So, when I saw white, I had to blink a few times to get my drowned brain to register what I was seeing. Lying there, against black trash bags, was an Angel. Not just a pretty lady, not just some profound person who would change my life forever, a literal Angel. Wings and everything. I stared for a while at her perfect white wings, her long, wavy brown hair, perfectly clear tawny skin… So much skin. This was about when I realized she was naked, and my first reaction was to close the dumpster and jump away.

Now, someone in their right mind might call the cops. It’s probably a costume, I told myself. _We’re in that part of town, maybe she’s a hooker. Oh god, what if she’s hurt?_ This thought had me opening the dumpster again and diving in, hoisting myself up on the lip of the dumpster. She seemed to be unconscious, so I touched her shoulder and shook her a little. “Hey, are you okay? Do you need help?” My words were badly slurred. She probably should have been afraid of me as she opened her bright Sapphire eyes and met my dull brown ones, but she wasn’t. She just looked at me, calmly, studying my face as if she were reading a book between the pimple scars on my forehead. “Are you okay?” I repeated after a while. She said nothing, but started to push herself up. As she put weight on her left wrist, however, she let out a yelp of pain and collapsed on the bags again. I offered her my hand. “Come on, I’ll help you. What happened?”

She looked at my hand, then took it slowly. I didn’t notice it at the time how soft her skin was, like touching polished marble. I helped her up into a standing position, then I got out of her way and she literally _jumped_ out of the bin, landing solidly on the pavement with her bare feet. She held her injured wrist to her stomach, then she wobbled like she was going to faint.

As my heart began to slow, I took my jacket off and handed it to her, but she held it in her good hand and stared at it as if she had no idea what it was. Meanwhile, I was trying to look anywhere but at her body while also trying to see if she was hurt anywhere else. Being drunk made it almost impossible, and I swayed a little as the alcohol and adrenaline mixed in my body. “Look, just… Cover yourself with it the best you can. Where do you live?”

She stared at me blankly. I should have taken her to the hospital. Instead, I carefully helped her hold the jacket against her chest so she could at least have a little decency as we went up the stairs to my single room apartment. “You can stay here for a little while, okay? Do you want to call anyone?” I probably should have quit trying to talk to her, she clearly didn’t speak English, but I didn’t know what else to do.

Once inside, I led her to my bed, where she laid down and fell immediately asleep. Ever since then, it had been coffee and infomercials while I tried in vain to process what just happened.


	2. Prayer

I only closed my eyes for a moment, but then my phone was ringing. As I picked it up, I noticed the program on the TV had changed. I was starting in on an awful headache. “Hello?” I said, my voice cracked and tired. I picked up my coffee and took a sip, but grimaced when I realized it was cold. I must have fallen asleep.

“Hey Mika, I know it’s early but how much weed do you have? I’ll pay you for eighth.” My friend Jordan sounded way too awake for however early it was.

“Dude, just get a card.” I stood up and walked into the kitchen with my mug. I looked at the time on the microwave before setting it to heat my coffee for a minute. It was nine thirty. It had now been seven and a half hours since… _Oh god_. I remembered all at once.

“It’s such a pain in the ass. Why would I when you always hook me up?”

“Jordan, get over here, right now,” I said, looking towards my bedroom door. It was ajar, and I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was in there. I could see the little pure white down feathers she had left. It wasn’t a dream. Now that I was sober, I knew.

“Woah, woah, dude. Chill. I was going to come over anyway if you were going to sell to me.”

“Forget the weed, just get over here.” I said, suddenly in a whisper as I plastered myself to the wall of the kitchen, clutching the phone to my face. What had I done? I had a naked woman in my bed who had never spoken two words to me and she might be _hurt_.

“Alright, I’m getting my keys, what’s going on?”

I could hear the jingle of keys on the other end of the line. It would take him about fifteen minutes to get from his apartment to mine. “There’s a girl in my bed.”

“Uhh…” Jordan paused, not saying anything for a while. “I don’t know where this is going, but…”

“Look, I can’t really explain, but when you get here it will make sense.”

“Oh my god, is she dead? I am not burying a body with you, dude, I don’t know you _that_ well.”

“She’s not dead!” I had forgotten to whisper, and in my shock I repeated in a whisper, “She’s not dead…” As if it would make up for my sudden shout. “At least, I don’t think she is. I’m going to go check on her.” I slowly stepped away from the wall and moved towards my bedroom door. “She’s weird. I don’t know if she’s Human.” Halfway across the front room, the microwave beeped and I jumped in surprise. After a sigh, I carried on, shuffling as quietly as I could across the carpet.

Jordan paused for a long time again, and I could hear him getting in his car. “I thought you quit acid. Drink some water and go to bed. Look, I’ll even come and tuck you in.”

“I’m not hallucinating,” I whispered as I slowly pushed the door open wider. There she was, taking up my entire King sized bed. She was sprawled out, head in one corner and feet in the complete opposite corner. Her wings were spread out, as well, and slightly hanging off the bed. She seemed to still be asleep. At least, in my drunkenness, I had somehow remembered to put a blanket over her. “I’m completely sober and staring _right_ at her.”

“Alright, alright,” I could tell he didn’t believe me. “Look, I gotta put my phone down because I’m still on parole. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“Okay, hurry,” I whispered again before waiting for the line to die, then I moved to put my phone in my pocket. Unfortunately, I was only wearing boxers so all I managed to do was slide my phone against my hip before dropping it. The sound made me freeze, and I was scared I’d woken her, but she just groaned softly, shuffled a little, and went back to being asleep. At least, I had to assume she was asleep. She hadn’t moved and her eyes were closed.

I thought that I would just stand in the doorway for fifteen minutes, but I managed to close the door, leaving only an inch gap. I walked back to the kitchen, collected my coffee, and then settled back on my couch. The TV had turned to the news. Apparently there had been a brilliant meteor shower the night before. Scientists were struggling to explain it. Weird. 


	3. Babel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wakes.

Of course, the meteor shower had me thinking of all kinds of fantastical falling-Angel scenarios. I tried to tell myself it was all ridiculous, but an Angel was literally in my bed. Physically. She was there. Alive. Real. I ran both my hands down my face and shook my head. “This can’t be happening to me,” I whispered to myself. I was just a kid. 22 years old, community college dropout, living off a combination of inheritance and a minimum wage job at Taco Barn. My parents died when they got lost on a hiking trip when I was 3. I was with my grandfather at the time, and was raised by him. Now that he was in a home in Santa Rosa, being taken care of for Alzheimer's, I had no one. My extended family never reached out to me. So, here I was, thinking of the numbers in my contact list on my phone, trying to think of _anyone_ I could trust with this besides Jordan.

Once again, I asked myself why I hadn’t called the cops.

Maybe I was worried that she would get hurt. I didn’t know what it was like in real life, but in movies and shows, anything weird just got hurt. Aliens especially. This woman was about as alien as it got, minus the buggy black eyes and elongated limbs.

Maybe, and this was the more likely and terrifying reason, I was curious. If the cops came, they wouldn’t let me keep her, and I would never find out anything about her. While she was with me, I was in control, and I could learn from her, if she would just say something to me. Now that I realized that the reason I hadn’t called the cops was selfish but irresistible, I did my best to push the thought from my mind. I needed to get her to talk. Maybe, it would be best to do that before Jordan showed up. In that case, I had only ten minutes.

I got up and went towards my bedroom door, but stopped. What was I supposed to do? Just touch her completely naked shoulder and ask her for small talk? It was better to offer something. She needed clothes, but I didn’t have much that would fit her, especially over her wings. And, she would probably be hungry. I turned and went back to the kitchen, letting out a long exhale as I tried to get rid of some tension.

Prospects weren’t great. I opened my fridge and found ketchup, beer, and a half-eaten tin of pot brownies. In my freezer, I found a few frozen burritos and a sad two-year-old never opened bag of frozen spinach, a remnant of my attempt to get healthy. Since I was living on inheritance, I usually ate out and didn’t cook at home. I knew there was only peanut butter in the cabinet, so I put a frozen burrito on a paper plate and in the microwave. I stopped it one second before it finished to save myself from hearing the beep, then brought my sad offering of nutrition to my bedroom.

I slowly opened the door, burrito in one hand. As I slowly walked around the bed, I held my breath. Her eyes were still closed and I let my breath out. I didn’t know what I was so afraid of, but something about her made me on edge. Maybe it was the massive white wings that took up the entirety of the bed behind her. I would be finding down in my bed for weeks.

I put the burrito down and went to my closet, not entirely hopeful. Most of my underwear was dirty, but I did remember that I had a weird scarf thing that a girl had left one time. The number she gave me ended up being fake, so I could never return it. Her loss.

I picked up the maroon-colored fabric off the bottom of my closet and flapped it a few times to get the dust off. I thought that she could put it around her waist like a skirt, at least. But, for her top… I grabbed one of my white tanktops, then looked back at her. She didn’t make a noise when she slept, which was the creepiest thing. It made everything tense. I was starting to wonder if she was asleep at all.

I looked down at the tank top again. If I cut down the back, she could pull it up over her shoulders and under her wings, right?

I left my room again, grabbed a pair of kitchen scissors, and cut down the back of the tank top. I removed a rectangle of fabric from the back. I realized it needed something to keep it up, though. I punched two holes on either side of the new gap, near the neck. I grabbed a shoelace from a disused sneaker and tied one end in one of the holes. I could tie the other end to the other after she put it on to hold the back closed above her wings. I looked at my creation and sighed. What if it didn’t work? I had just destroyed a perfectly good undershirt. It seemed wrong to ask someone so beautiful to wear such a disaster anyway.

Regardless, I took it back into my room and laid it on the bed along with the scarf and a belt. I steeled myself and moved around to where her head rested on one of my pillows. With a trembling hand, I reached out for her shoulder. The moment I touched her skin with one finger, her eyes snapped open and I yelled, jumping back and bringing my hand to my chest as if she had burned me. She stared at me with perfect deep blue eyes and didn’t move, didn’t blink, for the longest time while I tried to get my heart under control.

She moved before I did. One of her arms moved underneath her and pushed her up. The blanket fell off of her as she sat up and I looked away. I had seen everything anyway, but I didn’t know what else to do. It didn’t seem like she cared if I saw her. Every new thing she did was making my skin crawl, including the way she was just _staring_ at me, silent.

“Uhh,” I swallowed, trying to fix my dry mouth, “I brought you a burrito.” My voice sounded small in the quiet room, which seemed even more silent than it ever had been when I was alone. She still stared at me. “And clothes,” I added, motioning with a hand towards the end of the bed. I had fixed my eyes on the bottom of my lamp so I couldn’t even tell if she was looking. I assumed she wasn’t, judging by the prickling feeling on the back of my neck.

I heard fabric rustling, and I realized that she was even creepier when she was moving than when she wasn’t. I put a hand up to my forehead so I could block myself from seeing her and just look at her feet. She was standing now, turned away from me, towards the foot of the bed. My heart pounded like a drum in my ears against the quiet. _Fuck, Jordan, get over here_ , I thought to myself.

I watched her feet move to the side, then towards me. I didn’t have time to brace myself before she took a step towards me, grabbed my wrist, and ripped my hand away from my face violently. My elbow and shoulder hurt from the force that she put into the movement and I hissed as I flattened myself against the wall, nearly knocking the lamp over.

That was when she spoke for the first time. I didn’t understand a word, if there was more than one word. I couldn’t even catch a syllable. I knew she spoke, I knew it wasn’t English, but I couldn’t even attempt to repeat it. The moment she was done speaking, the sounds were a distant memory. I couldn’t even decide if it was beautiful or hideous. Dumbfounded, I closed my eyes, not knowing where to look. I heard her scoff as she let go of my wrist. There was more fabric rustling, and then I heard the clink of a belt buckle. She was putting on the skirt, hopefully.

I stood there in personal darkness, straining my ears over my heart so I could try to understand what she was doing. I no longer felt curious, I was only terrified. This woman was strong, she was creepy, and I was pretty sure she didn’t like me.

When I heard the knock, I felt it was my saving grace. “I’ll get it,” I said quickly before fleeing my room. On my way out, my arm hit one of her wings. She didn’t say anything, but my stomach clenched in fear. When I got to the door, I stood with both hands on the doorknob, catching my breath for a moment. Was it right to bring Jordan into this? I needed help. Jordan was here. I had no choice. I opened the door.

 


End file.
